How to Make a Dessert Bar: Jammin’

Posted on: September 21, 2012

Before I was asked to do the dessert table for my sister’s wedding, her fiance suggested that I make the favors. Somehow just the favors turned into something even bigger, but I’m happy to do it all! The favors won’t exactly be part of the dessert bar, but I thought it would be nice to include it in this series. We bounced around a couple of thoughts, but once the idea of jam came up the decision was set. Lucky for me, jam can be made well in advance, so right before the wedding all I need to worry about are the desserts.

My sister and her fiance left the whole flavor decision up to me, so I decided to do some test runs and see where that took me. I started off with a California citrus marmalade, which I thought was interesting because of its local appeal (FYI: the wedding will be in Malibu). That evolved into an experiment making a citrus tea marmalade to use like Korean citron tea, but something didn’t seem quite right and we weren’t sure if it would appeal to a larger crowd.

I didn’t want to completely abandon the citrus element, so I started pairing different fruits with different quantities of lemon.

I ended up with six different batches of jam, all using a different quantity/ratio of lemon with either pears, yellow peaches, and berries. It was really hard to choose the best, but I ended up choosing one that I thought would have the most appeal to the widest crowd. Can anyone guess??